{"id":99370,"date":"2025-10-23T14:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T14:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/99370\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T14:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T14:06:09","slug":"darth-vaders-next-novel-will-revisit-the-moment-he-made-his-red-lightsaber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/99370\/","title":{"rendered":"Darth Vader’s Next Novel Will Revisit the Moment He Made His Red Lightsaber"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve known for a long while<\/a> at this point in the modern Star Wars canon how would-be-Sith get their crimson lightsaber blades: the unnatural \u201cbleeding\u201d<\/a> of a kyber crystal. We\u2019ve even seen how Darth Vader acquired a crystal to make his own<\/a>. But the next major\u00a0Star Wars novel will re-explore that same moment\u2026 and as always with the galaxy far, far away, it\u2019s interesting to see how things shift with a certain point of view.<\/p>\n

This week Entertainment Weekly<\/a> released an excerpt from Adam Christopher\u2019s upcoming novel Master of Evil<\/a>, which will follow the early days of the fallen Anakin Skywalker\u2019s days as Darth Vader as he explores his apprenticeship to Palpatine and the potential power of the darkness he has succumbed to and embraced in equal measure. That\u2019s ground that\u2019s been well trod in contemporary canon already, thanks to Charles Soule and Giuseppe Camuncoli\u2019s volume of Marvel\u2019s\u00a0Darth Vader comic series<\/a>, and\u00a0Master of Evil certainly understands that (no confusion like there has been between some ancillary\u00a0Star Wars media and the film\/TV universe here), especially as the scene released today recreates a key moment from those comics: the first steps Vader takes to crafting his own Sith lightsaber.<\/p>\n

The events in\u00a0Master of Evil play out much the same as they did in those comics<\/a>: Vader kills a reclusive Jedi, Kirak Infil\u2019a, secures his lightsaber, and at Palpatine\u2019s guidance, takes the weapon to Mustafar, where he begins the process of corrupting its kyber crystal to claim it as his own. We even still get the very compelling push-and-pull resistance of the crystal in the excerpt that we got there too (one of our favorite comics moments<\/a> of 2017), where the kyber crystal, in an attempt to resist Vader\u2019s will, blasts him with visions of a potential future where he realizes the horror of what he\u2019s done, kills Palpatine, and finds himself kneeling before Obi-Wan pleading for forgiveness. But a defiant Vader renews his effort, facing a surge of his actual memories: the death of his mother, his defeat on Mustafar at Obi-Wan\u2019s hands, and, of course, memories of his dead wife, Padm\u00e9.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s neat to see\u00a0Master of Evil offer its own interpretation of this scene, especially in the context of getting to have it play out in the medium of a novel rather than a comic book. But that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s just a straight retelling of those exact events, with the same framing. There are\u00a0some subtle differences in the translation from the comic series to Master of Evil.<\/p>\n

\"Darth\u00a9 Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, David Curiel, and Joe Caramagna\/Marvel Comics <\/p>\n

One particularly striking difference between the excerpt and how it plays out in Darth Vader #5 is a piece of punctuation. In both instances of the scene, after Vader has seen this vision of him seeking redemption and returning to the light, he groggily picks himself up, forcefully slams the crystal back down under his clenched fist, and says, \u201cNo. I refuse. This is all there is.\u201d That\u2019s how it is in the comic, but fascinatingly, in\u00a0Master of Evil, it becomes a question:<\/p>\n

He sees a man sitting. A man he knew, once, a long time ago, but when he approaches, the Jedi\u2019s blue blade is already alive and ready to strike.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the cave on Mustafar, the apprentice reaches out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI refuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

His fist closes around the crystal as it hangs in the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all there is?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s subtle, but it creates a really interesting point of contrast. The way it appears in\u00a0Darth Vader #5 suggests anger and defiance\u2014Vader rejects the potential of the crystal\u2019s vision and subjects it to his will, the darkness he has accepted within. There\u2019s even a sense of tragedy to it, that, so broken as he has become, Vader can only accept that this is his way forward and overwhelms the crystal with that pathos.<\/p>\n

Master of Evil making \u201cThis is all there is\u201d a question, rather than a statement of fact, opens up interpretation\u2014an element of potential doubt that even in this moment of embrace, the future we know is coming one day, where Anakin really is redeemed in his sacrifice on the second Death Star, is already there somewhere deep down in his mind. It could even be read as inverse, that the question Vader poses is of the crystal itself, that this is all it can do to try and sway him, or that this path of redemption is not worth what he has already endured in his suffering to get here.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s such a tiny moment, but the fact that it exists and can create all these potential interpretations of the same scene, the same line of dialogue, is really an example of Star Wars at its very best<\/a>, when it does not give us one definitive vision of what its story is but invites discussion and interpretation from multiple sources and perspectives\u2014playing up that mythopoetic, historical aspect<\/a> of the series that has made it endure as a modern cultural myth<\/a>. It\u2019s also a very cool way of showing how two different yet similar mediums, like books and comics, can play with this in ways that a purely visual medium like film and TV would have to use different techniques for.<\/p>\n

The more\u00a0Star Wars treats itself as less of a series of immutable facts and moments and more as something that can be remixed and revisited and reinterpreted, the better. That\u2019s what Star Wars should feel like if it\u2019s going to be the transmedia behemoth it\u2019s become, after all!<\/p>\n

Master of Evil will release on November 11.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve known for a long while at this point in the modern Star Wars canon how would-be-Sith get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[61773,93,61,60,61774,270,2140],"class_list":{"0":"post-99370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-darth-vader","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-master-of-evil","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-star-wars"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}